


Here Comes Santa Claus

by ariellesallee



Series: The Adventures of Liv Shepard (Side Stories) [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, Mass Effect 3, Paragade (Mass Effect), Spacer (Mass Effect), Vanguard (Mass Effect), War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3171646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariellesallee/pseuds/ariellesallee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part Two of “Christmas on the Normandy.” Shepard plays Santa to a bunch of kids in the refugee camp on the Citadel. Set mid ME3, just after Priority: Rannoch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Comes Santa Claus

**Author's Note:**

> This one might actually fit rather neatly into The Adventures of Liv Shepard, but I'll decide for sure when I get into writing that part. For now it sits in the side stories.

"Are you sure about this, Shepard?"

Liara T’Soni stood just inside the doorway of a conference room on the Citadel. A group of children was filing in: human, turian, batarian, drell, salarian, asari, krogan, quarian, a few other races. Liara watched them with a frown. She liked children well enough, though she’d never quite known how to act around them. This many in one place, however, was… disconcerting.

Then again, too many people in one place was disconcerting to her, whatever their ages.

Shepard, however, seemed to be having no such problems. Outwardly, at least, the marine acted as though people didn’t bother her. Liara knew better, knew the marine found people overwhelming sometimes and retreated to solitude whenever she could. But right now, Shepard leaned against the wall with her arms folded over her chest, apparently at ease. She was watching the children with a fond smile on her face.

"Yeah, I’m sure," the human replied easily. "Why wouldn’t I be?"

Liara frowned at the children again. “They are so young. Do you really think they understand…?”

Grey eyes cut to look at the asari, a reddish eyebrow quirked. “They understand, Liara. Trust me. I think they understand what’s going on more than most of the galaxy does.”

Liara sighed. “If you say so, Olivia.”

Some of the children had noticed Shepard. They were whispering to the others, pointing. “Is that really…?” “It is!” “It’s Commander Shepard!” The tone of the whispers were a mixture of awe and disbelief.

Shepard gave them a smile, and Liara noted that unlike her usual smiles to her “fans” these days it wasn’t strained at all.

Liara steeled herself and stepped forward to get the children’s attention. They had work to do.

***

_Three hours earlier…_

Shepard got a lot of odd looks on her way out of the Normandy, with a giant red bag slung over one shoulder. People in the docking bay peered at her even more than usual, but she paid them no mind. She was on a mission.

The Citadel docking bay that had been given over to refugees from the Reaper invasion hummed with activity as usual. Shepard ducked into a bathroom and quickly changed into an outfit pulled from the bag. When she was done, she had a pillow strapped to her front, a red coat and pants over it, a white wig and fake beard and red hat. She looked at herself in the mirror as she put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Finding them had taken scouring every antique store on the Citadel with a very happy Garrus by her side. He really did like antique stores.

Shepard examined the effect, turned her head left and right, then nodded to herself. She looked like Santa Claus. Or at least, enough like him to get along with the kids.

She got more odd looks on her way out of the bathroom, but she paid them even less mind. Instead, she just marched through the docking bay toward the cargo containers set up as shelters for the refugees.

As she went by the alien areas the whispers and looks intensified. She figured they were mostly “look at that human, how strange they can be!” The refugee areas were split up by species, as much out of practicality as inherent prejudice—it was easier to distribute food and supplies that way. But the different species mixed regardless, people from one camp making friends in another. This had only increased as the war went on.

So it was that while she was passing the turians she heard the first cry of “Santa! Hey, look it’s Santa!” A little boy ran out and followed her, trailed by a curious turian child or two. By the time she reached the human camp, she had behind her a train of children of various races, all curious to see what the excitement was about.

As she reached the human area she was greeted with a chorus of “Santa!!” from some of the children—the ones who recognized the figure. Plenty of kids who grew up in the colonies, and even plenty on Earth, never had exposure to Christmas. But Shepard had had the idea to at least come and give presents to the kids, maybe brighten their day a little, here on Christmas Eve. After all, there was a war on. These kids’ lives were bad enough; good to give them some hope, wherever it came from.

She’d considered coming as herself, but she hadn’t wanted to distract them with her celebrity. Better to be as anonymous as she could, whether the kids believed or not.

She slung the bag down off her shoulder and, with the deepest voice she could manage, said, “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas, everyone!” She glanced to the coordinator of the camp (with whom she’d at all this up) and received a brief nod.

Shepard went on through the act, dealing with kids mobbing her for hugs and then going to sit down and distribute presents. As the coordinator tried to get the kids organized, she whispered into her comm to Traynor, asking her to get more presents for… turian, asari, drell, batarian… oh, hell, just make sure there was another delivery from Santa’s elves and _be quick about it._ She wasn’t about to let the alien kids be left out; they were, even now, hovering on the edges, watching curiously.

Presents were distributed: clothing, toys, art supplies, an omni-tool for a promising teenaged tech expert. The presents had been bought with funds from those of the Normandy crew who’d been willing to chip in—which had been most of them. Even the aliens and the humans who didn’t celebrate Christmas could get behind giving presents to the refugee kids.

Then one boy, looking down at his present, said, “Santa, this is great, but… I… I have something else I want to ask for.”

"What is it?" Shepard asked, doing her best to look at him with a kindly twinkle in her eye.

"Well, it’s…" The boy took a deep breath. "My uncle’s in the Alliance, and he’s working really really hard. And I was hoping maybe you could get him some better armor? That’s really all I want for Christmas." The boy looked up, hopeful. "His name’s Aaron Bestman, he’s a Serviceman, he’s part of the marine detachment on the Shanghai."

Shepard thought she might choke up, but managed, “Yes, of course.” She made a mental note to get the entire marine detachment of the SSV Shanghai an armor upgrade, whatever strings she had to pull.

After this there was an outpouring of requests, as though the boy stepping forward had given the others permission to do the same. They wanted to hear from family, they wanted people to be safe, they wanted a colony evacuated.

After a while, Traynor arrived, wearing a red floppy elf hat she’d found somewhere and accompanied by Vega wearing a matching hat, with a big bag over his own shoulder. He introduced them as “the tallest elves in Santa’s workshop” and solemnly informed a wide-eyed little girl that he was so tall specifically so he could reach things on high shelves for the other elves.

Traynor rolled her eyes to this and started passing out presents to the alien children, who accepted them delightedly. There were rounds of questions: who was Santa anyway, what was Christmas, all the questions the aliens had surely wanted to ask but had felt too shy or confused to come forward with.

They started talking about their own holidays, and how they’d managed to celebrate them (or not) in the refugee camp. The human children who weren’t Christian brought up their holidays, too. A Jewish girl had celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur here in the camp and her family was now lighting their menorah. A group of Muslim children explained how their families were preparing for the month of Ramadan, which was starting in a few weeks. A little Hindu boy talked about the upcoming festival of Pongal, though he wasn’t sure there would be much of a harvest to celebrate given their location and situation.

Shepard just watched the children, smiling, glad they were coming together and talking so much. They were happy, at least as much as they could be, for once.

Then a turian girl, who looked to be a few years away from joining the military—maybe 10 or 11—came up and tugged on her coat.

"Yes?" Shepard said. "Can I help you…?"

"My name is Corvis," the girl said. "I’ve watched some vids with my human friends. They all say Santa Claus can do amazing things." A pause. "I’ve decided Santa must be a spirit. The spirit of the holiday, Christmas. But you’re… sitting right here in front of us. Are you _really_ Santa?”

Shepard quirked a brow at her, glanced to the other children, who hadn’t noticed the conversation yet. “Well, maybe the spirit of Santa Claus inspired me,” she said after a moment, with a smile. “Why?”

Corvis frowned. “What I want is to be old enough to join the military and help fight the Reapers. Can you do that? Can you make me grow up faster?”

Shepard hesitated. “I… why would you want that? You’re a child. You should enjoy being a child.”

"I can’t!" Corvis shouted, loud enough to get the attention of the other children. "I can’t just wait! My mother and father are out there, fighting… every adult I know is fighting, and I’m stuck here being a _child._ And the Reapers are… they’re running right over Palaven, and I can’t do anything. I can’t be any use to anyone like this.” She gestured at herself, at her height.

Shepard thought a long moment before she answered. The children were all looking over, their conversations fading out.

Finally the marine sighed and said, “Fighting the Reapers is important. But some day, hopefully very soon, they’ll be defeated. And then… and then it’s going to be _so_ important, to rebuild everything. We’re going to need a lot of people who know how to use a hammer instead of a gun.”

The turian frowned. “How do you know? The rest of the galaxy has dealt with rachni and krogan and geth before, but Earth’s never been invaded like this. You’re a human, even if you’re inspired by a spirit. How could you understand?”

Shepard bit back a laugh. She thought of her mother’s people, the Mohawk Nation, trying to hold onto their culture after the invasion of the Europeans, after being forced off their lands. She thought of the weird tension still present in the UNAS even today, in the aftermath of the Second American Civil War. She thought of conversations she’d had with Anderson, about his bitter feelings toward batarians that came out of his descent from the children of slaves, of his struggles with that as an N7 marine and Alliance officer. She thought of her father, dead in the opening salvos of the First Contact War, of Ashley Williams, whose grandfather had never been able to help rebuild Shanxi. She thought of how Ash had sacrificed herself as much to clear the Williams name as anything else.

She thought of the scars carried by the descendants of wars and massacres and genocides, the scars she’d carried all her life, long before she’d joined the military herself.

"Humans know more about it than you might think, Corvis," she said. "We have a long history of invasions, of cultures being wiped out. The Alliance fights so hard because every country that formed the Alliance has had those troubles in its history. Humans have fought over religions, over land, over money. Humans have enslaved and killed each other. That’s why we have figures like Santa Claus, figures of… hope, and peace."

She paused, looked around at the children all staring at her, and then went on, “There have been many times humans have had to rebuild. Many times people have tried to reconstruct a culture and language left from scraps after thousands or millions were killed. There are so many humans alive today whose ancestors were driven from place to place, hated, killed for being who they were. And even today there are humans who are treated that way, who go found their own colonies to get away from that persecution. And we’re on the path to treating biotics that way, too, if we’re not careful.”

She looked around at the aliens. “I know all of your species have dealt with this, too. The rachni invasion, and the Krogan Rebellions… the turians had the Unification War… the drell and the quarians both had to flee their homeworlds. Every time, there were people who fought, or fled. And then their children and to… hold on. Rebuild. Try to deal with the scars.”

Shepard sighed. “It’s hard. Even centuries after slavery stopped on Earth, there are people who bear the scars. There are whole cultures that have been lost to war and genocide. Languages we can never get back. But we have done our best. And when the Reapers are defeated, you will be the ones to carry on. You will rebuild Palaven, and Kahje, and Rannoch, and Tuchanka, and Thessia, and Sur’Kesh, and Earth, and all the rest of the galaxy. You will hold onto your languages and your holidays and pass them on to your children. We’ve lost trillions of people, but you’ll remember. I know you will.”

Corvis looked up at her and said, stubbornly, “What if the Reapers win and we all die? Then we won’t have done _anything_ to help.”

Shepard sighed again. Trust a turian child to expect the worst. Then she said, “Well, I _am_ Santa Claus—or inspired by his spirit, if you like—and I happen to know that there’s someone out there who is putting together a… time capsule for the next cycle. Just in case we lose. And maybe I could… make a call, and you could all record messages for the future. What do you think?”

Corvis smiled, in the way of turians, her jaw dropping a bit, her teeth showing. “That would be great!”

***

So it was that a few hours later, Shepard had taken off the Santa suit and waited in the conference room. She’d contacted Liara and asked if the asari would mind putting messages from the children in her capsules. It had taken some convincing, but Liara had finally said yes.

They’d gathered all the kids from the refugee camps whose parents and coordinators would let them come. If the kids suspected that the person who’d come to them as Santa Claus was Commander Shepard herself, they gave no indication. They stared at her in awe, and she just smiled back.

Liara stepped forward. “Okay. Well. I got a call and was told you have requested to put messages in my program for time capsules that will be seeded for the next cycle?”

Corvis, who’d become the sort of de-facto leader of the group, nodded. “We want to do something to help even if the Reapers win,” she said. “The Santa-spirit-person said we could record messages about ourselves and our cultures.” She glanced to Shepard. “He didn’t say _Commander Shepard_ would be here. Spirits.”

Liara nodded, with a faint smile. “Yes, you can. Ahh, Shepard is here because…” She glanced to the human, floundering a bit.

Shepard smirked. “I was there when she got the call. I thought I’d come see what you kids had to offer.” A pause. “After all, I’m the one trying to bring down the Reapers, right? It’s good to remember what I’m fighting for.”

Corvis just nodded in awe. Then she seemed to screw up her courage, and said, “Umm, Commander, I… I know that… General Vakarian serves on your ship. Do you think… maybe… I could get his autograph? I want to be as good as him with a rifle, someday.”

The poor girl clearly didn’t understand why Shepard and Liara both started laughing so hard. Nobody’d ever asked Shepard for the autograph of someone else on her ship; not unless they asked for hers, too.

"Of course, kid, of course," Shepard managed when her laughter died down enough. "I’m sure he’d be happy to. And," she raised her voice, "I can get whatever other autographs you guys want. But first, why don’t you talk to Dr. T’Soni’s drone, okay?"

Thus followed each child sitting in front of the drone, talking about their family and their culture. Some of them sang songs, some danced, some talked about holidays, and some talked about their families. Some talked about their hopes and fears for the future.

It became messy, with kids running around and laughing and singing together. Corvis got into a friendly tussle with a krogan girl, both of them demonstrating fighting techniques for the camera and laughing a lot. When Liara tried to stop this, Shepard reached out to put a hand on the asari’s arm, shaking her head. “Let them,” she murmured. “Let the future see them the way they really are.”

Liara watched them a little while longer. “You were right,” she said finally. “They understand better than I thought they would. And I think this was good for them.”

"Yeah. Good for us, too." Shepard watched the kids with a smile. "The future’s in good hands, whatever happens."

Liara smiled. “I think you might be right.” A pause. “Merry Christmas, Shepard. That is the right phrase, yes?”

Shepard laughed. “Yeah. It is. Merry Christmas, Liara.”


End file.
